Medusa: a proximity-aware tabletop

Medusa, as [Michelle]’s project is called, is a Microsoft Surface that has been fitted with 138 proximity sensors. This allows the Surface to sense users walking up to it, and detect users hands and arms above the table top. Multiple users can be detected at the same time, and the left and right hands of two users can be mapped to specific users.

The proximity sensors [Michelle] used are inexpensive, so we’re wondering when someone with a crazy multitouch setup will add proximity sensors to their build. We’d like to play with Medusa, even if just for a virtual game of Settlers of Catan. It seems like the perfect setup…

[Michelle] built Medusa last January during her internship at Autodesk. Now that UIST 2011 is over, she can finally talk about it. There’s also a video demonstrating the possibilities of Medusa, check it out after the break.

to be critical:
I’m surprised a company would do something like this. Please post the BOM if this is the inexpensive route. These sensors are cheap (around 10 usd), but 138 of them? and are those ADCs on each sensor? These look like the Sharp IR proximity sensors that Sharp has discontinued (recently recontinued?)

I would just like to clarify that this is a research prototype, and not a product. Quite often, the point of a prototype in a research capacity is to show what could be possible in the future (in this case, a future where proximity sensors are produced for pennies). You are correct, they are sharp distance sensors, and when buying them off the shelf, they do cost $10.

Well, and if that’s the MS surface device I know of, those things are upwards of 10k. So the cost of the prox sensors relative to the core device is probably is pretty good, considering the added utility you got.

Because you know Steve Jobs, in an immaculate materialization, shat out a perfectly working and beautifully functional iPhone after a particularly spicy dinner of vegetarian vindaloo. Investors and fanbois alike were amazed, no prototypes needed.

If you really want to do that inexpensively, put a Kinect over the table and an infrared camera under the table. You could even keep the IR distance sensors and just drop the density by an order of magnitude.